24 Hours With’ takes a look at a day in the life of CORE’s agents. Reginald Grayson talks about saving time for himself among a crazy day of projects, committees and client face time.
One of the best things about being a real estate agent is having a flexible schedule. However, I learned early on that “flexibility” can easily mean working all day and night. Though with my business coach, I have learned that I have to take care of myself first in order to perform at my highest level consistently. I now create my schedule one week in advance beginning each day at 6:00 am by following a morning routine called “S.A.V.E.R.S.”.
The first S is for spirituality, which for me means meditation; next is Affirmations, followed by Visualizations. Here, I mix up the order and skip “E”(exercise), and jump to Reading, which is always something designed to motivate, elevate and illuminate my thinking and, thus, my behaviors; and finally Scribing, which is my favorite part of the morning. I use this time to write down things for which I am grateful. It’s an incredibly grounding activity that puts everything in its proper perspective. With that mindset, I then complete the routine with Exercise, by doing 1 round of stair climbing in my 26-story apartment building.
7:00 am: Breakfast. While eating, I check my emails and catch-up on the news, mostly electronically – the top stories and the most emailed articles in The New York Times; “The 10-Point” in the Wall Street Journal, a summary of the top stories by Editor in Chief Gerard Baker; and The Morning 10 in Crain’s New York Business.
8:30 am: Respond to my emails again. I often work from home, as many of my appointments are in the opposite direction of the office. Because market inventory is so constrained, I spend an hour or so every other day trying to get new inventory – calling people in my sphere, owners of expired listings, former clients, etc.
9:30 to 11:30 am: Project Time. This is time set aside to work on marketing or operational projects, like cleaning up my database. Currently, I’m working with my business partner on a client appreciation event that will take place on September 16. Stay tuned on that…
12 noon to 6:30pm: Client face time. This is when I am most likely to be meeting with clients, either taking buyers to showings or doing listings presentations for sellers. I’ve done deals from Fort Greene to Riverdale and everywhere in between, so this part of my schedule varies widely in terms of where I will be on any given day.
My evenings are a smashup of meetings, meals, philanthropy, working out, dating and relaxing at home. When I’m not dining with longtime friends, I often have dinner or drinks with clients who have become friends – another great aspect of this business!
I do one last check of emails around 9:30 and am in bed by 10:30.